Messy Desk Essay

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Albert Einstein once said, “if a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” Einstein was suggesting something against our social convention, as we all know that the majority of our peers and colleagues judge us partly based on how organized our desks are. Coincidentally, David Freeman also argues that messy people are more productive than neat people. In daily life, those with an extremely messy desk are considered to be careless and undisciplined. In order to increase study or work efficiency and productivity, our parents, teachers and supervisors all tell us to clean up our desks so that we can be more concentrated at work and thus more efficient. Almost all parents train their young children to …show more content…

A messy desk does not necessarily imply the absence of order. To be more specific, it can be a highly effective prioritizing mechanism. On a messy desk, the most important and urgent work will generally be on top of the piles or close by, while the least useful stuff will be near the bottom. This filing system helps us easily find the documents we need. On the contrary, a person with an organized desk may need to take some time to remind himself of the location of a specific file and look for the right filing cabinet or folder before he can find that file. By flexibly reducing the time we spent on looking for specific things, the seemingly disordered desk can provide people with more efficiency. Take myself as an example. I have a messy desk as well as a messy bookshelf. My bookshelf is filled with papers and books from different courses. Textbooks and files from the past quarters are at the bottom of the bookshelf, and sometimes they are even laid on the floor. Meanwhile, several books stay on my desk. I should put them back on the bookshelf but I wouldn’t because I consult them all the time for writing, class preparation, and sometimes just for fun when I need to relax. I am currently working on my psychology project, which requires references from five different books. According to my course schedule, I will start another research paper when I am done with the current project. I am busy with my school projects with no time to clean my desk and bookshelf. Most importantly, although my bookshelf looks messy, there is a clear organizational system where books on the same topic stay together, and the books that I frequently read will stay on the upper shelves while those that I do not read that much will go to the bottom. I have a sense of where things are and where they should be. My desk and bookshelf perfectly function and support me to perform with greater productivity in three distinctive ways. First of all, I can

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